NWP Shabbat Message - August 20, 2010

Dear Friends:

We human beings are creatures of habit. We inure ourselves to our situations, sometimes to the point where we cannot even see the reality before us. In our communal life, we may be dedicated to the principle of helping the needy, but at the same time we may pass by a homeless person in the street without a second thought. We speak of tikkun olam - of repairing the world and making it a better place - but we have grown so used to the bad news around the world that we sometimes hardly take notice. It can become part of the background noise of our existence, ever-present, but not really seen or personally experienced. Unintentional as this may be, our tradition teaches us to guard against such complacency.

This week's parashah, Ki Tetze, enumerates 72 seemingly unconnected mitzvot or commandments - some related, some not - a stream of consciousness with no apparent method or pattern. Do this, don't do that. Leave the dropped gleanings for the poor. Don't muzzle an ox while it's threshing. Don't marry your father's former wife. The only overt connection being either "because G-d says so" or "this is what you need to do to be good citizens in the Promised Land."

But then there's this one: "If, along the road, you chance upon a bird's nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life."

What is so special about this mitzvah? At first glance, it appears to be based on pity for animals. But if that were the case, we would have been forbidden to kill animals altogether. Clearly, there is something else at play here, and it is a lesson for us as individuals, as well as in our capacity as leaders.

First, the language indicates that this is something that we come upon unintentionally - "along the road" - indicating that we weren't seeking it, we weren't thinking about it, it simply happened upon us. Nonetheless, we are enjoined to become intentional; especially in those situations where we can easily become hardened to our surroundings. And that intentionality must always lead us to a place of compassion and the avoidance of cruelty. It's not about the bird. It is about us and who we are; about the society that we are to create. Our leadership model must be based upon kindness and compassion, for it is only in this vein that we can make the right decisions and create the best path for our communities. It must become a matter of habit for us, so that our inclination will always bend towards kindness - even when we aren't thinking about it. Consider when this discourse is taking place: it is at the moment in time when we are about to become a nation in our land of inheritance. It is about building a future. Of all the things that could have guided this prescription, it is compassion that takes center stage.

There is a distinction to be made here, however, with respect to the purpose of this compassion. It is a complicated notion, but the compassion of which we are speaking in this instance is not about the other; it is about us. Biblical scholar Nechamah Leibowitz posited that not slaughtering mother and young on the same day and sending away the mother bird are not inspired by feelings of consideration for their suffering but are "decrees to inculcate humanity in us." Much of our work in the community happens "along the road," and there is not always time to ponder every decision. Once our guiding principle has been ingrained in us, however, nothing we do may deviate from this moral and ethical path, for it is commanded - it has been decreed.

We think a great deal about decrees this time of year. Our High Holiday liturgy reminds us about this in serious, critical language. Our lives will be measured and evaluated; we are held accountable for both our actions and our failures to act. And it does not matter if we were intentional or unintentional. All that is within our power is ours to own. In one of the highly emotional points of our supplications, we say that the severity of the decree may be averted by three things: by returning to our truer selves, by meaningful and purposeful prayer, and by acts of righteousness and kindness towards others. It is our cultural DNA that is made of these strands, so that no matter the situation, intended or happenstance, we will always be on the right path for the right reasons.

And that is a good habit to get into.

Shabbat Shalom!

Beth M. Mann
Managing Director
National Women's Philanthropy